


the quiet hours/turn into years

by storyskein



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Future Fic, Long-Term Relationship(s), Polyamoryish, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 17:33:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8854576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyskein/pseuds/storyskein
Summary: In the end, there wasn’t a chaotic run to the doors, nothing like Bellamy had seen in old films or read about in old books. No breakneck convoy from the Dome to the Bunk. There were no heroics. There was either survive, or die. 
	In the end, it was just a series of radio calls, from disbelieving to shouting to that voice Clarke got, when she couldn’t believe the fight was over. 
  	This can’t be the end. Bellamy. It doesn’t happen this way.
	But it does. Clarke, you have to close the doors. 
	I won’t! I’m leaving, I’m coming to you, we’ll figure something out. 
	Then a rustle and a shout, and then Kane’s voice. Tell us what to do, Bellamy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the song "Sons and Daughters" by Allman Brown. This fic is entirely the fault of ms_scarlet.
> 
> Just a fair warning that this is a long-term, separated Bellarke fic in which their relationship is fluid. I'll be exploring that through the course of the story. Heed the tags, friends :)

The waves roll quietly over the sandy beach. The dawn sun peaks over the horizon and soft streaks of dusky pink and bright gold light up the early morning sky. Bellamy sits on a piece of driftwood and for the first moment since he landed on Earth he feels like he can just breathe. His lungs expand to take in the briny sea air; the back of his throat is prickled by the resinous tang from the pine woods behind him. It’s so quiet, so peaceful. 

The tops of his ears redden when his mind inevitably turns to the night before, to the soft sounds Clarke made as he moved against her. To her warmth around him, her lips on his neck, his collarbone, her hands skating down his sides, gripping his hips. It had all been so much, so everything. 

His head snaps up at a rustle in the grass, and as if just thinking her name summoned her, Clarke emerges from the sea oats and late summer sunflowers, backlit and edged with gold by the rising sun. The morning breeze catches her shorn hair, blows it in her face. She smiles at him as she pushes it behind her ear. 

It takes him a second as she walks closer to realize that--fuck, she’s naked. The flush that started at his ears descends down his jaw, but at the same time, the hunger for her that was awakened last night stirs in his belly. He--they--had been keeping it so tamped down for so long that it feels new, heady, hot in his blood. 

Clarke draws closer, and he can see the pink tips of her nipples, the midnight blue veins that cross her pale breasts, the gold curls at the junction of her thighs. She had been gorgeous the night before, of course, but it had been different. Then, their skin had been lit by firelight, they had taken on the spectre of flame and shadow and breath. Now, here she is in the morning standing before him, soft smiles and a hand that reachs out to tangle in his hair. 

“Hey you,” her voice gets caught on the breeze, it pulls it away from her. 

Bellamy smiles, wide and easy. Clarke stops right in front of him, and he runs his hands from her knees up her thighs. Her breath catches as his hands slide over her hipbones. She presses into his palms, just a little, widens her feet so her thighs come apart. He leans into her and sighs with how sweet and iodiny she smells, curls already darkened with moisture. Bellamy fixes his mouth right at the apex, lets his tongue swipe down right over her clit, just to get a taste of her. 

“Bellamy,” she whispers, both hands in his hair now, widening her thighs for him. “That feels so good.” 

He hums so that his lips vibrate against her sensitive skin, and she sighs, her hips rocking into his mouth. 

It doesn’t take long for Clarke to shudder over him. Even though this is only their second time together they just _know_ each other; somehow it’s instinctive to him that what she wants is his flat tongue pushing on her clit, enough space to grind as she works herself back and forth. He grips his fingers into her ass, sure to leave bruises. 

Afterwards, after a few moments to catch her breath, she kisses him long and slow. Their tongues twine together and she doesn’t break the kiss as she straddles his hips and sinks on his hard cock. Clarke rides him until he comes so hard his head snaps back; he sways with it, stars dot his vision. 

Later that afternoon, Bellamy wakes up first from a nap. She’s warm against him and soft, the old quilts over them thin and silky with age. Clarke stirs at his movements, adjusts herself so she’s on her back. She gives him a slow smile, a half-lidded invitation with her sleepy eyes. Bellamy parts her thighs with his hips. His cock sinks into her cunt, already wet and hot for him. Clarke arches and Bellamy drops his head to her breasts, sucking on one while his hands work the other. 

It’s slow fucking; for twelve more hours they have nowhere else to be. Nothing else to do but enjoy each other. 

Bellamy mouths his way up her chest, to the spot he found the night before, right above her collarbone---

“Bellamy,” a voice whispers, light and urgent. “Bellamy, it’s time to wake up.” 

Bellamy cracks his eyes open just as his alarm blares. Shit. His cock is half hard and he twitches his hand away before Mel notices. 

Mel squints at him, not pleased but not quite mad. 

Besides, that’s not what this is. 

“Hey,” he says, voice gravelly with sleep. Mel drops a kiss on his mouth, and he kisses back, shocked at how this kiss, awake, can feel less real than Clarke’s kiss in a dream. He tries though, returns her kiss for a moment. 

She seems to buy it--or wants too, at least--sits up and rolls out of his bed. “Will I see you tonight?”

Bellamy gets up, moves over to the wash basin to clean his face and teeth. “Sure.” Even to his ears it lacks enthusiasm. He needs to do something about that. 

“Catch you at the bar then.” Her tone is hard to read, but Bellamy can guess what it is. It bothers him, some, but not enough to actually ask her about it. She’s already pulled on her clothes from where she dropped them the night before. “See you.” She disappears out the door. 

Bellamy turns the lock, then lets a minute pass to make sure she doesn’t come back for something. Then he jacks off to the last unfinished bit of his memory-dream, where Clarke cried out his name as her cunt clenched over him, when for forty-eight hours they believed that even if the world ended, they’d be all right. 

*

_**Six Months until Reintegration** _

Clarke worries her lip with her teeth as she scrawls out the calculations on her tablet. “That’s two thousand one hundred and thirty-two pounds of potatoes, five hundred and...fifteen...pounds of sweet potatoes, three hundred and twenty-two pounds of soybeans…” There was still corn, winter squash, and the salad greens to calculate but her eyes are starting to cross. She could finish tomorrow, the calculations weren’t going anywhere and the convoy isn’t until next week, and damn, she’s tired. Besides it’s five in the afternoon. Quitting time. 

Just then Abby pokes her head in the door. “How’re those calculations coming?” 

Clarke leans back in her chair, stretches her arms out overhead. “Suffice to say, we’ve had a good harvest.” 

“That’s great news!” 

Clarke nods. “Especially after last year. I think the difference must have been in the soil composition. Every year we just get a little better. And we couldn’t have helped that water systems failure.” 

“Just a tragic accident,” Abby agrees as she leans against the door jamb. Last year, a water pipe had broken in one of the vegetation domes, flooding out the entire crop of potatoes. Potatoes were the crop that kept everyone alive, provided the most dense form of sheer calories they had. It had been a disaster for the domes and the bunker. 

“But this harvest,” Clarke sighs, heart happy at the large figures she just imputed into the spreadsheets. She hates to sound so optimistic, so she raps her knuckles on the desk. “Knock on...well, metal, I guess. This year we feast.”

“Well I think that deserves a drink. And some dinner. Come on,” Abby jerks her head to the hallway. “Let’s go pick up Marcus and Enid.”

Clarke flicks off the light, smiles even though she winces internally, every time, it never fails. But Abby knows so she tucks Clarke more tightly under her arm. “Six more months,” Abby murmurs against her hair. “That’s all.” 

“I know,” Clarke says as they walk down the dimly lit hall. 

It’s not until several hours later, after dinner with Marcus, Abby, Enid, and Raven, games and stories, then putting Enid to bed, that Clarke finally lets herself relax in her small bunk. The domes weren’t really meant to house families, that was supposed to be the Bunk, but they had remodeled during the first year and now Clarke and Enid had a nice family suite with Marcus and Abby. Clarke’s room was the smallest, just a bed and a built in desk, but it was all she wanted. All she needed. 

The quiet-as-the-dome gets settles around her. Truthfully, the living quarters were underground, but still part of the dome system. It’s a mechanical silence like the Ark, but she tries not to think about that too much because she hates it. Hates that she fell from space to Earth only to be trapped, once again, in a machine. And it’s Wednesday, not yet Thursday, so she can’t use the comms. 

Her eyes flutter shut and her hand travels down her belly, fingers sliding into her slippery folds. Quickly, without even thinking, she pushes three fingers into her cunt, remembers their last time, when they stole away into the woods and Bellamy fucked her hard. Bark scraped the palms of her hands as he thrust into her and she rocked back over him. It had been sweaty and desperate and like they had somehow _known_ (but how could they have known?). 

Clarke furiously rubs at her clit with the other hand as she fucks herself on her fingers, and just as soon as she recalls (as best she can) the feel of his sweat-sticky skin on hers afterwards, she comes with jerk, teeth cutting into her lip. 

She licks away blood, satisfied, then wipes herself clean.

*

The screen frazzles and pops a few times, the image waving for just a split second before it comes into focus. The chair in the screen is empty, and Clarke’s heart sinks. Over the years there have been a few times that emergencies have happened, that they weren’t in their respective places for the Thursday night call. Sometimes it’s fine--well, it’s not _fine_ , but it is what it is, and that’s part of it. 

But tonight the empty chair slices into her. 

“Where’s Dad, Mama?” Enid whispers, her eyes searching the frame. 

“I don’t know, baby,” Clarke answers. She wills the tears not to shine in her eyes, but sees Raven’s look soften. Raven doesn’t pity her, pity them, but Clarke knows she still feels guilty for how it all happened. It’s not a look she wants to see tonight. Nine and a half years later and it still hurts like it’s fresh sometimes. “Let’s give it a few minutes. Why don’t you look at your book while we wait?”

Kane is with her too. They have regular communication with the Bunk and Monty, but Thursday is the only sure time they’ve carved out to talk to Bellamy. If it was an emergency, sure, but just about weekly stuff---Thursday it is. And Kane needs to talk to him about the reintegration plan, and Raven needs to talk to him about some tactile gear she’s been working on that will arrive in the next convoy, and then he needs to talk to Enid. 

Then, Clarke. 

“Where is he?” Raven mutters. She steals a glance at Clarke. “I can radio over to Monty. See if he can find him.”

“He’ll be here if he can.” 

Kane shoves a hand through his hair. “I can’t really wait a week to talk about these plans. We need the Bunk to start preparing. Especially the guard.”

Clarke tries not to sigh, tries to repress the whine in her chest. She wants to see his face, wants the door to close behind Raven and Kane and Enid and for them to just...have some time. Some quiet. 

Just then the door on the screen opens and Bellamy steps through. “Hey guys, I’m here,” comes in through the speakers, along with some rustling as he takes off his jacket. His torso grows larger, and then suddenly, there’s his face on the screen as he settles into the chair. 

Bellamy’s eyes always search her out first. “Sorry for being late.”

Clarke nods. She shoves away the irritation, mostly based on worry that he wouldn’t make it. But he’s here now. She can let it go. “Everything okay?”

He snorts, rolls his eyes. “Yeah. Mostly. Just breaking up a scuffle between some kids on my way here.”

Clarke laughs at how utterly beleaguered he looks and it feels good, punctures the tension in their room and with him. Even if her hand wants to reach out and tussle his curls, well, she slides it along her thigh instead. “Well, I’m glad you made it. No injuries, either.”

“Smart ass,” he retorts. “Sorry, Enid.”

“It’s all right, Dad,” Enid giggles and curls onto Clarke’s shoulder. “Mom says worse.”

“Does she?” Bellamy’s tone is mild. His brow quirks up, and the look that flashes through his eyes is hot, private, just for her, something that only the two of them would catch. But then he returns his focus to Enid. “How’s your schoolwork, babygirl?”

“Good,” Enid says in her sing-song voice. Her black-brown curls flop over her eyes and she shoves them away in haste to hold up some school work for Bellamy to see. “Auntie Raven is teaching me geometry.”

They continue like this for almost an hour, Enid going first, half catching up and half a history lesson from Bellamy, who also functions as the Bunk’s history and literature teacher. Whoever is there also participates, and it’s ritual Clarke has always loved, all of them taking turns asking Enid questions and listening to Bellamy tell stories. 

Then Abby steps in to say hello to Bellamy and take Enid bath and bed. 

“Night, Dad,” Enid says, pressing a kiss on her hand and then against the screen. Bellamy returns the gesture. The muscles in his jaw jump, but this is routine now, even the longing. 

“Night sweetheart. Be good for your Mom, okay?”

“Sure thing.” 

“Night Bellamy,” Abby waves at the screen, and he returns it. 

Kane, Bellamy, Clarke, and Raven move on to discussing the reintegration plans as soon as the door closes behind Enid and Abby. Kane talks to him about getting the guard ready, then Raven about some of the new gear that would be coming their way. The conversation lulls an hour later, both sides having taken notes on what to do for the next week. 

The clock in the work hallways chimes out nine. Raven’s brace squeaks as she stands up. “Well, I’m calling it a night. Good chat, Blake. Good night Kane, Clarke.” 

Kane stands, too. “I’m out as well.” He pauses for a moment. “Incredible to believe that we’ll be seeing each other in six months.”

“Yeah,” Bellamy says. All three know how critical the next six months are, how much is between _now_ and _then_ , how much hope and anticipation and how much they can’t control. But six months is the goal. But it’s easier to say, “I can’t believe we’ve made it this far.”

“And we will make it.” Kane divides a look between the two of them, opens his mouth to say something then closes it. Instead, he leans into the camera, “Have a good week, son.”

Bellamy smiles back at him. “You too, Kane.” 

Then it’s just Bellamy and Clarke in their dark and silent rooms, half a mile away from each other, as the crow flies, but also nine and a half years. 

*

It was a fluke of planning. That’s what gets Bellamy the most, when the night is long and dark and his bed is empty, when he can’t hold his child or Clarke. Ten years of life lost because of a change in the work schedule. 

That, and an unexpected storm. 

*

_Nine Years, Six Months Ago_

“We were never this shitty, right?” Miller said as he joined Bellamy against the concrete wall of the bunker. “Tell me, please god, we were never such dicks when we were kids.”

“We were,” Bellamy laughed, stealing the canteen from Miller’s hand. “We absolutely were.” He took a swig from the canteen and gracefully held back his sputter when it was moonshine, not water. “Still are, too.”

“Yeah,” Miller grinned, stealing it back and taking a swig. “Still are.”

They were training the new new cadets--which seemed to be all they ever did--a coalition of Grounder warriors and Ark guards. Both the Bunk and the Dome would be in need of protective forces, and with only a few months until they closed the doors, time was growing short. Most of their recruits were kids in their mid and late teens, put on a strict schedule of school in the morning and training in the afternoon. 

Kane, Indra, and Sveren, the head warrior from the Delphi clan, headed up the program, but it was up to Bellamy, Miller, Octavia, Karis, and Runyan to implement it. Bellamy didn’t mind, he genuinely liked hanging out with the kids, and he didn’t do it every day like the others. Sometimes he and Clarke went out on scavenging or on diplomatic missions, though those had mostly ceased as the time to close the doors drew nearer. 

Bellamy watched as Harper demonstrated take-down techniques to a group of the older students and tried to ignore the prickling at the back of his neck. Something had been off for the past few days, something that made his skin itch. Earlier that morning before Clarke went off to the Dome for the day, she had asked him about it. 

“You’ve been twitchy all week,” Clarke murmured, mouthing kisses along his chest. 

His fingers drew light circles on her back. “I just have a feeling.” She settled into the crook of his arm, and he looked down at her, tucked a curl behind her ear. “I used to get these...feelings...before inspections, or before Octavia would get sick. I don’t know. Foreboding, I guess.”

“Mmm. You psychic, babe?” Clarke teased. He ruffled her hair, dug his fingers into her ribs causing her to squeal. 

“Yeah, didn’t you know?” He settled on his forearms over her, spacing his words between loose kisses. “I predict that you’ll come...two more times before morning alarm.”

Clarke smirked, wriggled her hips over his cock. “That’s a bold prediction.”

One that came true. Clarke’s second orgasm rippled over her just as the breakfast bell rang. They got dressed, trading easy touches, something that if Bellamy thought too much about he couldn’t believe. That they were here, now, less than a year after even meeting, handing each other clothes, talking about their work schedules. Lingering at the door as she went early to the Dome with an _I’ll just eat there._

(Bellamy thinks about that a lot, that his last words to her in person being _make sure you do_ , the _I love you_ still getting caught in his throat sometimes. But Clarke knew, tiptoed up to kiss him. Her last words to him were _see you at dinner_.)

He watched as she sauntered down the hall, Raven falling in beside her before they reached the elevator to go up to the main level.

“Bellamy!” Harper’s voice interrupted his reverie, and Bellamy snapped his eyes from Harper to the door. Monty stood there, breathless, hands on his knees and bent over. 

Bellamy’s blood ran cold at the tone in Monty’s voice. “What is it?”

“You need to come to the command center,” Monty panted. “It’s...it’s bad.”

Bellamy ran past him, Miller yelling out a sharp _Dismissed!_ behind him. He could hear Monty following, Miller and Harper too, but there was a power in his legs that only panic could account for. 

He reached the command center in less than a minute. “What is it?” He barked out to the technician--Jill? He didn’t know--who was furiously clicking through screens. Maps of all sorts and doppler radar and sheets of other numbers flipped past him. 

“It’s this storm, right here,” Monty said, two seconds behind him, not even stopping his stride as he pointed at the glowing red on the screen. “It’s coming in from the North, and our prediction is that…”

“That it’s a radiation cloud,” Jill interjected. “See that?” She pointed at a squall-shaped band roving over the screen. “We set up monitoring stations every few miles. This is picking up increased levels of atmospheric radiation.” 

“I thought this wasn’t supposed to happen for another few months.” Bellamy looked between Jill and Monty, and now Miller and Harper were at the doorway watching. 

“It wasn’t,” Monty said tightly. “But atmospheric conditions have become increasingly unpredictable.”

“How did you not see this before?” Bellamy knew his tone was harsh, knew it, but by god. _Clarke Clarke Clarke_ rang in his mind, but also Kane and Abby were at the dome, and so were Bryan and Raven, and the only things that were ready were the radiation scrubbers and seals, since Raven and Monty had insisted that was the first thing to do. _Thank the fucking gods_. 

Monty shoved a hand through his hair. “It’s the fucking apocalypse, Bellamy, it’s not exactly _on a schedule_.” 

Plans raced through Bellamy’s head, all of the different points of preparedness and different scenarios they had fun, and _fuckshit_ , they just weren’t ready. 

“How long do we have? Before the storm hits?” 

Jill and Monty went quiet at once, so quiet. Bellamy would remember that half-second of silence for the rest of his life. 

“About...about thirty minutes,” Monty whispered. 

Bellamy looked over at Miller, both of them with their people at the other site, half a mile away. 

“How long…,” Bellamy swallowed hard, trying to hold back the nausea and the panic and the fear. _You have to think clearly, you have to think clearly, now is_ NOT _the time_. “How long do lock down procedures take?”

The chaotic, rolling lights of the screen caught a tear rolling down Jill’s cheek. “An hour. An hour to completely seal the Bunk. A little less for the Dome.”

Monty didn’t look at him, just kept his gaze on the ground as he said, “We need to close the doors for both locations, Bellamy. And we need to do it now.” 

*

In the end, there wasn’t a chaotic run to the doors, nothing like Bellamy had seen in old films or read about in old books. No breakneck convoy from the Dome to the Bunk. There were no heroics. There was either survive, or die. 

In the end, it was just a series of radio calls, from disbelieving to shouting to that _voice_ Clarke got, when she couldn’t believe the fight was over. 

_This can’t be the end. Bellamy. It doesn’t happen this way._

_But it does. Clarke, you have to close the doors_. 

_I won’t! I’m leaving, I’m coming to you, we’ll figure something out._

Then a rustle and a shout, and then Kane’s voice. _Tell us what to do, Bellamy_. 

*

“How are you?” Clarke asks once the room is silent. 

“I’m okay.” Bellamy’s face relaxes as he looks at her, just one of those things that makes her heart warm. “You?”

Clarke shrugs. “People are getting excited over here, about the convoy and then the reintegration. How are the tests looking?”

“Promising.” Bellamy leans back in his chair, and the chair squeaks. “The radiation levels are falling. Jill and Monty are saying that their data indicates temperatures are normalizing.” 

“And soil?”

“You’ve become such a gardener,” Bellamy’s tone is teasing but his eyes are warm, affectionate. “Some of the samples that have been picked up by the ground rovers are good. Some are inconclusive. Monty wants to pick your thoughts about doing some experiments over the next few months. Said he’ll call over on Tuesday.”

“Sounds good. Something different to do.” 

“Yeah. And Enid? How’s she?”

“Good,” Clarke smiles. “Just normal. Loves the geometry that Raven is teaching her. And Jace is teaching her soccer, which keeps her somewhat occupied, though it’s broken some inside windows.” 

Bellamy laughs a little, but when they talk about Enid it’s never a totally real laugh. “And you? Anything new with you?”

This is their workaround question for _are you sleeping with anyone?_ Which they decided years ago that they would, if they wanted, ten years being a long time to be alone. 

It’s still weird, though, even if they’ve been having this conversation for years now. “It’s still mostly Raven and I trading orgasms,” she says lightly. “You know how it is. How’s Mel?”

Bellamy sighs. “I don’t know. I think...I think I need to call it off.”

“I’m sorry,” Clarke says, sincerely. “Mel seemed...good for you.”

“She’s a nice person. But.” 

“But,” Clarke sighs. It’s why she’s glad that she and Raven had what they had--best friends getting each other off except when there was someone else. They went through periods where they shared an apartment, other periods they didn’t, but at the end of the day, she and Raven knew exactly what it was--and wasn’t--between them. 

Bellamy had had that with Miller and Bryan, a little, but once they had adopted a few kids Bellamy stopped going over as much. 

“I’m sorry,” Clarke says. And she is. Clarke’s not jealous--they were long past that--and she wants him taken care of, physically, emotionally. She wants someone there for him. And If she can’t do it, she wishes someone could. 

“It’s not your fault, Clarke.” 

(But it still feels like it is, sometimes, when there’s a visceral ache in her body for him, when Enid cries about not being able to see him. She had gone to the Dome on an unscheduled trip to help her mom, _she_ had decided that the inventory in the Dome was more important than the inventory in the Bunk. She couldn’t have known. But still, in the dark hours, she blames herself for it.)

“I know. I just...I just want you taken care of. You know that.”

Bellamy adjusts in his chair and his voice is soft. “Yeah. I know. But I was also thinking that maybe…” He looks a bit shy as he regards her, boyish and unsure. She wants to smile, but bites her lip back. What is this? 

“Just. In six months. What are we doing in six months, Clarke?”

Oh. This is that conversation. 

“I guess I assumed we’d be...together?” Her voice lifts up at the end. 

Bellamy exhales, and his shoulders relax. “Yeah, I mean, me too, but if we needed to talk about it...I don’t know, I just didn’t want to assume.” 

For some reason, this riles Clarke up. She can feel a low-level anger begin to heat her stomach, and it frustrates her, because she doesn’t know _what_ exactly she’s angry at. 

“It’s just we’ve been doing this for almost ten years, Bellamy.” Her voice is snappish, grows more so when he just lifts his eyebrow. God, they still have that fight in them, she thinks, which make her proud but also, at the moment, more belligerent. “Why would it be a question?”

“Clarke. Come on.” He lifts his hands up as if to pause her. She can feel that her brow is wrinkled and her mouth is pressed in a thin line and fuck, she really doesn’t want to spend their Thursday night fighting but there is something that’s bothering her and for some reason, this is how it’s coming out. 

He studies her for a moment then says, “Clarke. I don’t know how to do this, either.” He works his jaw. Even in the dim light she can see the muscles twitching. She wants to kiss him there, in that moment, with such an urgency it physically hurts. “I’m scared, too.”

And with that, she deflates. The tears come, and she rests her face down in her hands. 

“Babe,” he says gently. “Babe, look up at me. Don’t hide, okay? We promised not to hide.”

She still sniffs back when she looks up. But they did promise six years ago, after the hellish year, to not hide. It wouldn’t work if they did. So Clarke looks up, lets him see her, feels pathetic for it, but it’s the only way _this_ , whatever this was, works. 

“So why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you?” 

“Honestly, I don’t know. Everything is fine around here. I guess…,” Clarke swallows hard. “I guess I’m just afraid. That it won’t work. I can’t believe that the Domes and the Bunk have worked so well so far, and now with just six months to go...just...feels like something is going to fall apart somewhere along the way.” 

“I get that, babe. I do. I feel it too. It feels as if nothing _good_ has really ever happened. Has really ever...stayed.”

“Yeah.” Clarke leans her head on her palm and breathes out. There’s a lull in the conversation because when you don’t lie to someone, sometimes there are no pretty assurances to offer. And Bellamy and Clarke don’t lie. So instead she says, “Harvest was good.”

His face breaks out into a smile. “Yeah? That convoy going to be loaded with some great stuff?”

Clarke smiles back at him. Bellamy’’s irresistible when he grins like that, he knows it, and she loves it. She loves him. “Yeah. You know those berries you like? There will be a few cartons tucked away in the spot.” 

“You spoil me, babe.”

Clarke shrugs, unrepentant. They weren’t the only couple that got split on that day, but they were the only one still going. She figures that sometimes it’s the small things like illicit marionberries that give them an edge. “I do what I can.”

Then he gets the _look_ in his eyes, the one that sends a thrill up her spine. 

“Is the door locked?” His voice is low and gravelly and hot with need and she just wants to press into it. 

Clarke swivels her chair over, locks it, bolts it. “Now it is.”

He licks his lips, and she can _feel_ it on her, the phantom of a touch she had, once. “Good,” then, “what do you need tonight, Clarke?”

Afterwards, when they’re both giggling and teasing, and the control room smells like her sex--something she’s long gotten over the embarrassment for, _everyone_ knows what happens in the control room on Thursdays at this point--they settle back into their chairs, both stifling yawns. 

“What’s your plan for the week?” Bellamy shrugs his jacket back on, zips it up. 

“Nothing much. The usual. Talk to Monty, I guess. Pack up the convoy. You?”

“Teaching, the usual. Meet with Miller to start implementing the training.” He pauses, reluctant. “Break up with Mel.”

Clarke nods. “You sure you’re okay with that?”

“Yeah.” And she can tell he is. They’ve been through this before with other people, with both of them, and sometimes the ending isn’t good, even though they all seem inevitable. “I just...I want to be ready.” He adds, a little shyly, “For you. For Enid. You know, for us.”

“I get it.” She’s so tired, can feel wave after wave of yawns tingling at her jaw. “Do you want me to stop sleeping with Raven?”

He laughs then. “No. God, why deny both of us.” 

“You’re not denied,” she smirks. “You still get jacking off sessions with me.”

“That’s true.” Bellamy rolls his eyes a little. “Six months of masturabation Thursdays.”

“Lucky boy.”

They stand up at the same time, bending down for the last moments in the camera. 

“I love you,” Bellamy says. “Give Enid kisses for me.” 

“Will do. And I love you, Bellamy.” She feels suddenly overwhelmed with feelings, and like there are no words in the world that could capture what she needs to say to him in that moment. But he gets it, he always does, they always do. 

“Hey Clarke,” he whispers. “See you soon?”

Her heart lurches with anticipation and not a little bit of fear. “Yeah, babe,” but she can’t help but smile. “See you soon.” 

Clarke clicks off first tonight, the screen switching half to doppler radar and half to rotating security cameras. She stands and stretches, then walks back to her room. 

*

The first four months after the doors closed passed in a blur for Clarke. They--Abby and Kane and Raven and Jace and about two hundred people, both Sky People and Grounders--worked tirelessly to set up the ag systems, the comms, build in the rest of the living spaces. Clarke and Bellamy weren’t the only couple--the only family--separated. Only Bryan reunited with Miller; he had been with the Rover almost back to the Bunk when the warnings went up. Bellamy had told her in one of their early radio calls that Bryan had just slipped in, and scars from the black rain burns marred parts of his body now. But he made it. 

Everything that could have been a pregnancy sign could _also_ be chalked up to something else. Exhaustion? They were working from dawn until midnight. Mood swings? Crying? She had just been separated from her person, her partner, her best friend, for who knows how long. Maybe forever. Throwing up? Stress. Missed periods. Stress. 

Life was a blur. Nothing made sense. The closing of the doors had happened so fast that even four months later Clarke could barely process it. Every morning she woke up expecting that by the end of the day she would be able to see Bellamy somehow. But then it kept being another day, and another, and another. 

It was Abby, though, who saw her stepping out of the showers, saw the way she winced when the towel crossed her breasts. Who with a doctor’s intuition asked, “Clarke...are your breasts sore?”

“What?” Clarke’s head snapped up. She scoffed. “What a weird question, Mom.”

Abby eyed her. “Well? Answer it.” 

“Who’s asking? My doctor or my mother?”

“Both.” 

A dark, twisting foreboding slithered into Clarke’s gut. “W-why? Why do you want to know?”

“So that’s a yes, then?” Abby’s voice was gentle, barely above a whisper. 

Clarke twitched her head away, caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She hadn’t really looked at herself in months, she _knew_ she always looked wrecked. Dark circles under her eyes, shoulders tight and always riding up, a hollowness to her face. Stress acne lining her jaw, lank hair, a sallowness to her face. She already knew this, why did she want to look? She could barely get on the monitor with Bellamy when he wanted to talk. 

But in that moment she saw something else. The dark circles and the acne, but also breasts that were heavy, lined with dark blue veins, breasts that hurt every time she moved. And even though she had lost weight, there was a hard pouch of stomach between her hips. If she had noticed that her pants had been getting tighter even though she could barely eat…

“No,” Clarke breathed. Her hand glanced upon her stomach then recoiled. She looked at Abby. She could barely get the words out passed the vise of her throat. “That’s not possible.”

For the first time, maybe ever, her mother seemed at a loss for what to do. Abby gripped the sink ledge nearest to her. “They failed, sometimes,” she said softly. “Bellamy would know that better than anyone. It is Bellamy’s, right?”

And suddenly she just _knew_. 

“Yes,” Clarke got the word out before her knees buckled and she sank onto the cold, hard tile. 

*

Five months later, Bellamy listened to his daughter being born over the radio. 


End file.
